"Get up." Kion opened his eyes to the sight of an ancient elf.
"It's about time you showed up." He said, picking himself with a grunt.
"So, what's the update? I sense you're in some kind of…danger." Tyril said, facing away from Kion.
"Then you're a couple of hours too late. The danger itself has been dealt with, at least that's what we think."
"We?" Tyril asked.
"Yes. I am with my half-brother on this one."
Tyril turned, as if alarmed by that piece of information. Kion noticed finer details on his face, like his cheekbones being sharper, or the glistening allure of his teal eyes. His armour seemed to give off a sharper lustre too.
Tyril's expression softened, as he remained silent for a moment, almost as if he was processing things.
"Is it so surprising to you that I'm working with my brother on something?" Kion questioned, deeply bothered by Tyril's reaction.
"Maybe," The elf said, "but I do know that it is within your best interests to work together, so that, in itself, may not be so surprising."
Kion noticed how calculative Tyril seemed to be. He had met with him on several occasions in the dreamscape, then why did everything seem so…eerie, as if he was just noticing things for the first time.
The dreamscape was another anomaly.
For the first time, Kion noticed the details he shouldn't have, like the sound of trickling water from a river, or the pigeons that soared high above.
The grass appeared greener and crisp, his eyes able to pick out each individual blade, and the sky was a deep hue of blue and cyan.
And a new addition also followed, a pink mist that settled in the air and made everything appear a bit brighter.
His dreamscape buzzed to life around him. And normally, that would have been a good thing. It would have felt right, like he was advancing in his spiritual progress or becoming more spiritually aware.
But it felt strange, and out of place.
"Do you not have something to tell me?" Kion suddenly asked after moments of silence.
"Not really," Tyril replied, "although I do have to ask you what you're going up against so I can offer some advice."
"Were going up against," Kion corrected, "and we've long defeated it. But I wanted to ask you something."
"Which is?"
"I have reason to believe that you know what an Ancestral Soul-Stealing System is?"
Tyril flashed a confused expression, then suddenly appeared calm.
"Okay." He said.
"What do you think it is?" Kion pressed.
"It is a—well, like the name implies, a system for stealing souls. In fact, I came across it in my days."
"I possess it." Kion cut him off. "It shows me some parameters that I can only control by killing things."
"Killing things?" Tyril asked, showing a bit of surprise.
"Yes. Things like humans, elves…" Kion paused, allowing Tyril to take it all in.
"…monsters…" Kion said.
Tyril froze.
"Well…I can check these so called parameters of your system for you."
"Really, how?" Kion asked.
"Through something called a soul alignment. Let me just touch your forehead with my finger. That is how it starts."
Tyril began to move towards him.
Meanwhile, Kion had seen all he wanted to see, and he had come up with one conclusion.
The only conclusion that would have mattered.
The only conclusion that would ensure he'd survived.
Kion knew that whenever one dreamed, the details were always foggy, blurred out and unclear.
Details, which included what one saw and how they saw it. For instance, a sword seen in a dream can appear dull and basic, but that was not how it would've appeared here, in this world.
It would've appeared like it was the shiniest metal.
That was what was wrong. His dream world was too sharp, too crisp, almost like he was seeing everything the way he would if it were real life, and that was not how dreams worked, even lucid ones.
No, this was a perfect machination of his dreamscape. Too perfect, in fact.
And that was what gave it away.
Kion waited for the Egovore disguised as Tyril Everglade to within reaching distance of him.
Here, he didn't have his sword, but he remembered his tracking skill. That was all he would have needed to harm the creature, disrupting its mind feeding process.
Yes, mind-feeding. Kion finally remembered what the Egovore's trump card was.
An outburst of pink mist that dispelled its victims to a world of hallucination, trapped within their minds while it remained in the physical world, projecting its form into their heads and feasting on their minds.
It was a terrifyingly powerful tactic that ensured its victims had no idea they were being eaten from within, due to the hallucinations that they would experience, a fabrication of their most precious memories.
All this would happen while it took the guise of someone within that memory to attack them when they least expected it.
Kion barely had any fond, precious memories, which was probably why the Egovore could only spawn a perfect dreamscape with a half-baked spirit guide and expect him to be fooled.
Well, he was not. The reasons were glaringly obvious.
The main one being the largely incompetent spirit guide. Kion was sure that this system had a major thing to do with Tyril. However, the elf had claimed that he didn't know anything about it.
There was also the questions about what he was doing. Normally, Tyril would know without needing to ask. He was his spirit guide after all.
And there was the reaction he'd gotten from the Egovore when it mentioned that the system demanded he killed monsters.
That brief look of fear. He'd seen that when he was about to finish it off with [Fire Storm].
In the end, Kion had been sure halfway that this was all the creature's doing, without even needing to see all these signs. This was due to the fact that he'd finally remembered what the creature's trunp card was, and only suspected that it was using it.
It seemed that the memory suddenly came to him as a desperate measure of survival when his brain noticed that it was being feasted upon.
Meanwhile, the Egovore continued to advance, its hunger slipping through its perfect Tyril decoy.
It stretched a finger towards Kion's forehead, reaching in…
Just a bit closer…
Kion grabbed its arm.
"What are you…?" The creature said with Tyril's voice, starting to look alarmed.
[Smoke Trail]
Kion's eyes blazed amber.
The creature squirmed, its facade cracking away to reveal its hard, dried-out bark, its spindly branch-arms, those hollow, monstrous eyes…
The creature suddenly vanished, its cries resounding. Kion's perfect dreamscape world crumbled before his eyes.
"Well played, creature." Kion thought as everything soon turned to black.